‘So … you want an abortion?’ I said slowly.
‘No! It’s not even a … thing, yet. I just need for you to give me something that’ll make me get my period, because it’s over three weeks late now and I can’t leave the island, leave the whole show behind just because I need a pill. And if I wait until it’s over it’ll be too late to actually have an abortion.’
I was already shaking my head before she stopped speaking. Possible side-effects of herbs like tansy, pennyroyal and white dittany flashed before me: seizures, organ failure or coma. I’d studied them as part of a dissertation. The last recourse of truly desperate people where abortion remained illegal. The case studies of women using homemade poisons to expel unviable pregnancies the law required them to see through to the bitter end. A choice no one should have to make. Zoe had no idea what she was asking. If she did, she wouldn’t have come to me.
‘Zoe, there are plants with the right chemicals to do what you want but … it would be far too dangerous for me to even try to administer them to you. I don’t have the right training, we’re quite far from any real medical help if things go wrong and … Have you discussed this with Shaun? Does he even know?’
Zoe looked away. ‘It’s my decision.’
‘Yes, but have you spoken to him about it? He’d probably be worried about you if he knew what you wanted to do.’
Zoe’s brows drew down and she glared at me. ‘So you’re not going to help me because he might want me to be pregnant.’
I’d had enough. ‘I’m not going to help you because I know the risks here, and I have no desire whatsoever to poison you by accident, several hours from the nearest hospital. If you need medical care you should get on the radio and get someone to take you to the mainland where you can get it. I’m not discussing this further.’
I took a step round her and started to make my way back along the beach. Zoe caught up with me after a few steps.
‘I stood up for you, you know!’ she hissed. ‘I thought we were friends – that I could rely on you, but you’re worse than Maxine. You think you’re right about everything and that we’re just a bunch of fuckwits. But she’s right – we’re better off without you.’
I turned around so fast she bumped into my chest. Our noses were almost touching.
‘If you’ve got such a handle on things I suggest you stop stealing my fucking food,’ I said in a low voice. ‘Now get yourself out of my face and go gossip – it’s what you’re good at.’
I turned and stalked away, my heart beating heavily in my chest. I was shaking with anger. Over the past few weeks I’d been anxious, but calmly working towards my own goals. Just one run-in with Zoe and I was back to where I’d been the night I was kicked out: furious and on the edge of tears.
‘Fuck off then!’ Zoe shouted at my back. ‘Who needs you?’
I refused to turn around and instead made my way off into the woods. I was half convinced she’d follow me to my hut and trap me in there until I gave in. I didn’t have the energy for it.
Once I’d calmed down a bit I started to worry. I remembered the old horror story Mum had told me of the girl who attempted her own abortion. It was something that had circulated at school during my brief attendance and which she’d fleshed out and retold, drilling the warning into me. I’d had nightmares about it. It was one of the reasons I’d chosen to study those herbs in the first place.
If Zoe was in fact pregnant, her dietary needs would not be met by the rations they were on at camp. Even just in terms of calories she’d be undersupplied. Then again, perhaps that restrictive diet and its ensuing dramatic weight loss were to blame for her late period. We only had a few months left; my hope was that if she was pregnant she’d see sense and leave the island to get medical care. If she wasn’t, well, then there was no problem.
I was also worried for myself. Neither of us had been wearing our cameras, so the content of our conversation was between us two alone. If Zoe did try to brew up some concoction and did herself some harm, she might still implicate me. It would be easy for her to say I’d given it to her, as the island’s botany ‘expert’. Of course, she’d have to find plants at random; my foraging book was well hidden. Although it didn’t tell you how to induce an abortion, it did advise on herbs to be avoided in pregnancy. Not really a leap to work out what to use. It was then that I remembered Gill had a book of her own, from some company that made essential oils. Most of it was pseudoscience – I’d flipped through it out of boredom – but they did warn against using some of the remedies during pregnancy. I hoped that Zoe wouldn’t take that information and use it to work out what plants to ingest. Hopefully Gill would have more sense than to let her borrow it.
After a few hours of foraging I returned to my tipi and found that the cold ashes of my fire had been kicked over my bed. It was annoying but a petty act easily put right. It still hurt. I carried the sleeping bag outside and shook it into the sea wind. Then I put things to rights and put my camera on. From now on, I wasn’t going anywhere without it.
Chapter 16
‘You were, at several points during the time following the split from the others, accused of acting against the group, weren’t you?’ Rosie asks, head tipping to one side, mouth a sympathetic pout, as if to convey empathy to a scolded puppy.
‘Accused of trying to attack them, yes,’ I say.
‘I can’t imagine what that was like for you.’
‘No, I don’t think you can,’ I agree, watching as the pout purses up in slight annoyance. I wonder, for the first time, what Rosie would have been like on the island. I can picture it quite easily, shuffling her in with the rest of them. She looks most at home beside Gill, gossiping with that same insincere look of concern. Perhaps she would have joined in the finger-pointing as well. Echoing the hisses of ‘poisoner’ just like the others.
‘Why do you think it was that they became convinced you were responsible? As opposed to anyone else, or simply bad luck?’ Rosie asks.
‘Because it’s very easy to think the worst of someone you already hate. People assume that people they dislike are secretly revelling in their failures, and it’s not a huge leap to start thinking that they are causing you to fail. That used to be something you’d be killed for; just looking at someone before they fell ill or lost something valuable. Ill wishing. The others hated me, and they assumed I hated them, enough to go after them.’
‘But you didn’t hate them?’
‘I did, sometimes,’ I allow. ‘Mostly I found myself asking if they really meant to hurt me or if it was just unintentional. I fell into the opposite trap, you see. They thought I was out to get them, when I wasn’t. I thought they wouldn’t deliberately harm me, when they obviously could.’
‘So you think that’s the only reason they suspected you, the fact that they disliked you, and it was easy for them to believe the worst?’
‘No. Not entirely. It was also easy for them to believe, because I knew how to do what they were accusing me of.’ I sit back and watch as Rosie tries to cover her surprise with a knowledgeable nod. ‘I knew how to survive, to cure, so I also knew how to kill.’
Chapter 17
My worry about Zoe did not go away as easily as a scattering of ash. In fact it worsened as the days went on. Finally, when I could take it no longer, I decided to check on her, from a distance.
I went for my morning forage and deposited the haul in my tipi. Some interesting specimens that would require careful preparation later. I took some winter chanterelles and jelly ear fungus with me as a sort of excuse. If I was caught I planned on saying I was there to trade them for packaged food. I took a circuitous route up to the northern hills and from there found a good spot to peek down on the camp.
Nothing seemed so very different, not that I’d expected it to be. The only obvious change was a smoke hut, much like mine, which had been put up by the unfinished cabin.
Frank, Shaun and Andrew were sitting by the fire, drinking something out of mugs. I thought at first
that it was spruce tea but then noticed the plastic bottle on the ground, half full of brownish liquid. Homebrew.
After a while Zoe came out and went to the shower shelter with a billycan of steaming water. She looked fine, waving to Shaun as she passed. Satisfied, I crept back into the woods and went hunting for more mushrooms.
It was late afternoon when I got back to my tipi. The sun was on its way down and gloom was settling in, making space for nightfall. I busied myself firstly in cleaning a puffball I’d found. Once I had my cooking fire going, I went to fetch what I’d put aside for dinner. Only what I’d gathered wasn’t there; all of it was gone.
The theft was so brazen that for a second all I could do was stand there. To take some and hope I wouldn’t notice was bad enough, but to make off with everything was a blatant ‘fuck you’. Anger clouded my mind for a moment, but quickly gave way to panic.
The mushrooms were amanita muscaria – fly agaric. I’d left them out because I’d not thought anyone would take bright red mushrooms with white scales, so similar to storybook toadstools. They looked inedible and many books called them so. If not chopped and boiled to remove the ibotemic acid, they could induce vomiting, hallucinations, seizures and other horrible side effects. Even death.
My heart was racing. If the others had taken the mushrooms they wouldn’t know how to prepare them properly. I grabbed my torch and ran for the camp without a second thought.
As I ran I tried to think. How many mushrooms had I gathered? Deaths from amanita muscaria were rare, but the effects could be nasty and Zoe was potentially pregnant. I couldn’t remember exactly how long it would take the combination of toxins in the fungus to work – maybe an hour. If they’d taken them while I was at the camp and eaten them for lunch they’d be fully in the grips by now and possibly unable to get to the emergency phone for help. I knew symptoms could last for at least eight hours and if the person was already drunk, weakened by hunger and without access to clean water …
I burst into camp and was hit by the smell almost at once. Shit and vomit. Sounds of retching came from both the latrine and the shower shelter. From somewhere close by came the sound of something semi-liquid splashing into a bucket.
Around the fire I could see huddled shapes of people and I went to them first. It was Frank and Shaun. Frank appeared to be asleep, but Shaun was staring into the embers of the fire, pale and unmoving.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked, but neither of them answered. Shaun just blinked slowly. I realised he was high. Fly agaric had a reputation for being a ‘magic mushroom’. Even reindeer tripped on the stuff. I was about to try and take Frank’s pulse when I was shoved from behind. I stumbled, flinging myself away from the fire, regained my balance and turned around.
Zoe stood behind me, breathlessly furious and wide-eyed, her face streaked with tears and glitter.
‘You!’ she shouted, pushing me again. ‘What have you done? What the fuck is wrong with you?’
‘Zoe, I haven’t—’
‘You did this! You knew Duncan’d take those mushrooms, you knew!’
She started to sob. ‘What’ve you done to them?’
I grabbed Zoe by the arms and she struggled, starting to cry harder.
‘Zoe, I need you to listen to me. Those mushrooms are edible. I picked them for me. I don’t care if you don’t believe me, there isn’t time right now. I’m here to help, but you need to tell me who ate what and when. Can you do that?’
Zoe sniffed thickly, but nodded. ‘OK … OK … the mushrooms. Duncan brought them back here and I said – I told him! – they didn’t look good to eat. But he said they must be if you had them. So he cooked them up and I said not to be stupid but he ate them and I went off because he was being an arsehole. Shaun came after me and when we came back a while later everyone still seemed fine. Duncan offered Shaun some of the stew he’d put the mushrooms in. It had rabbit in so, I couldn’t have any but Shaun ate a bit. Then about an hour later everyone started feeling sick, except Shaun. He just … he’s been acting really weird. Is he going to be OK?’
‘I think so,’ I said. ‘He looks like he’s tripping, so I guess he must have had a small dose of the actual mushroom. But you said Duncan was eating them before that, was that with Andrew and Gill?’
She nodded. ‘I don’t know who ate the most of it, but Gill was the first one to throw up. She went off over there and we heard her. Duncan thought she was drunk at first.’
‘What about Frank and Maxine?’
Zoe snorted. ‘Frank’s been asleep the whole time. He drank a lot of Maxine’s wine and he wasn’t awake for the stew. She had some though, with Gill and the others.’
‘Right … I need to see how they’re doing. In the meantime can you find me Gill’s first-aid kit and make up some of those re-hydration powders? If the others are being sick a lot they’ll need them. Then can you just stay with Shaun and make sure he doesn’t hurt himself?’
Zoe nodded. I let her go and went in search of the four missing members of the community. I had to make sure they weren’t in danger. I found Maxine first, holed up in the latrine. After some coaxing she opened the door a crack and I saw her pale face and sweat-soaked hair. The smell of sick made my eyes water. I told her about the mushrooms and promised to come back in a bit with something to drink. She only nodded weakly and eased the door shut.
Gill was in the unfinished cabin, one of the buckets close by. She was leaning against the wall with her eyes shut. There was a bottle of water next to her. She’d clearly been sick a lot but had at least tried to stay hydrated. She didn’t look as bad as Maxine. Since Gill had been sick before any of the others, I suspected she’d thrown up most of the toxins before they’d had a chance to work fully. Luckily for her.
I found Andrew behind the hut, wrapped in his sleeping bag and dozing next to a bucket of shit. He didn’t look in any serious danger and he had a steady pulse. I decided to let him sleep until it was absolutely necessary to move him.
Zoe had prepared a few water bottles of orange-flavour re-hydration crystals. I snatched some up while she checked on Shaun, and went to see about Duncan.
I tapped on the door of the shower shelter, a wattle and daub panel on rope hinges. Inside I heard a groan. The smell of vomit and excrement was very strong. If he’d been the first to eat the mushrooms and had eaten the bulk of them, he was likely the most affected. I felt a guilty surge of satisfaction that it was Duncan who was faring the worst.
‘Duncan?’ I said softly. ‘It’s me, Maddy. Are you awake? Can you open the door?’
‘Fuck you,’ came the rasping reply.
I felt like in the current situation he was justified. At least he wasn’t unconscious. ‘Can you tell me if there’s any blood coming up, or … um … out?
There was a short silence then a quiet, sullen response. ‘No.’
‘OK. I’ve got some water here with something in it to re-hydrate you and balance out your system a bit. Can you open the door a bit?’
The door opened a crack and a waft of pungent air set my eyes watering. I held a bottle out and fingers snatched it away. I didn’t look at the smudges on the hand too closely.
‘I’m going to sort you out a change of clothes and something to clean up with,’ I said. ‘Call out if you have any pain or if the symptoms get worse.’
There was no reply but I knew he’d heard me. I went in search of hot water, soap and rags of any type. Since arriving we’d been using leaves and moss as improvised toilet paper. This was usually kept in a plastic bag hanging off a nail by the latrine. I found the bag empty, and set about collecting more moss and large leaves in the dark.
‘Zoe, can you dig out some cloths to wash with?’ I asked as I returned to the fire with my full bag and started to add wood to the flames.
I built up a good fire and rounded up all the billycans I could. I boiled up water and sliced a bar of soap from the hut into smaller pieces. Zoe came back with a hand towel and we cut that up too.
Wh
ile Zoe coaxed Frank awake and gentled him and Shaun to bed in the hut, I took care of the others. I started with Maxine, handing her a hot soapy cloth, then clean clothes. When she was out of the latrine I gave her a water bottle and sent her to the fire to sit. Gill was able to get to the fireside under her own steam once I woke her up.
Andrew came around when I tapped his shoulder. His eyes were unfocused and he had trouble walking, but I held him up while he wiped himself down. Once he too was lying down by the fire I went to Duncan. This time he had to open the door to me fully. His jumper and sparse beard were both caked in vomit. He was naked from the waist down, his khaki shorts and underwear trampled into the effluent on the shower floor. He was visibly trembling. He wouldn’t look at me and didn’t say a word as I passed him a clean cloth and some jogging bottoms. When I offered a hand to help him to the fire he refused it.
Soon all four of them were around the fire, curled up in sleeping bags and full of water. I was already exhausted by this time. After a full day of foraging the last thing I’d needed was a run up the hill to camp. I’d also not had anything to eat since breakfast. Though after smelling the lot of them I didn’t think I’d be able to stomach anything.
In the pit of my stomach was a hard little knot of guilt. All this was because of my mushrooms. All right, they’d stolen them, but had I expected anything different? Hadn’t there been a moment when I put them aside that I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if …’? It made me feel sick to admit it even to myself but yes, I’d thought there was a small chance they might take the mushrooms, assuming they were safe. I’d had the idea, deep down, that maybe they’d be taught a lesson if they were stupid enough to eat them. I hadn’t actually thought they would. Apparently I’d given them too much credit. Still, even the possibility should have stopped me leaving the mushrooms out. It was irresponsible. Any one of them might have been seriously affected.
My penance would be cleaning up the mess I’d caused with my carelessness. I went to work, forcing myself to remain awake and in motion.
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